ID2020: Tuesday Morning towards Nikolai

Time: 7.30am Race mile: 211

When I last wrote Aliy and team had left Rainy Pass. Since then they have travelled through the checkpoint of Rohn and have just left their camp spot near Tin Creek. She checked in to Rohn at 11.45pm and out again just after midnight and stopped at her camp spot roughly about 2.30am. They rested close to five hours there and she’s has broken the run from Rainy Pass to Nikolai roughly into two rather than stop at Rohn which is unevenly placed in between. They have around 50 miles till Nikolai.

During her planning for the race Aliy will have packed a “to go” bag in all the checkpoints where she had an inkling she might go though, to save time going through all her bags to get the supplies she needs for camping. She will have stopped in Rohn long enough to grab her bag, stuff some straw for camping into her straw sack, grab fuel for her cooker and allow the vet team to have eyes and hands on the dog team. There are vet crews at every checkpoint on the trail and they will have eyes and hands on the teams as they stop or go through and sight the vet book to ensure ongoing fitness of the dogs.

You can see the team’s run/rest pattern on the analytics of the GPS tracker

The trail from Rohn to Nikolai pass through such places as Egypt Mountain, the Buffalo Chutes and the Farewell Burn. On low snow years this area can be hazardous but one can only assume, like the rest of the trail, there is some snow cover potentially making it more benign this year. Let’s hope. Read in more detail on the Don Bowers Jnr trail notes.

Check out the latest ‘Run Dogs Run‘ by the insider featuring the Red Team at about 40 seconds in.

Identification Guide

We are conscious we have three look-alike sisters on the team so thought it might be useful to give you an identification guide to distinguish Junior from her younger sisters Amber and Violet. In short, all are beautiful tri-coloured, blue-eyed bombshells but that is not helpful when all three are on the team and all three are near the front end! A little more detail is that Junior has a slightly ‘roman’ nose, Violet has floppy ears and is a little cross-eyed and Amber has a wider ear-set. Junior is more likely to be in lead than her sisters. Violet used to run a lot in wheel which made it easier but her promotion this year has thrown a spanner in the works. Amber is likely to be the crazy one leaping about when the team is standing, waiting.

Junior and Amber both have white front left legs, Violet has two white socks. Still, not that helpful if you can’t see them side-by-side or if they are wearing leggings. The genes are strong in these three!

If we are really struggling we will look at the dark freckles around their noses. Sometimes even we have difficulty at certain angles so don’t worry if you can’t tell them apart.